Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Steve Jobs, And On This Day In History…

Gil Amelio replaced Spindler as CEO in early 1996 and immediately began to look for a next-generation operating system that might save the company from complete irrelevance. The result of that search was Jobs’ return to Apple, engineered via Apple’s acquisition of NeXT. Apple continued to slide through 1997, and Jobs finally found a way to win its board to his side in the summer, when he engineered a coup to bounce Amelio from the corner office.

By the eve of Jobs’ iconic 1997 Macworld speech, the company’s shares had given up most of the gains of the past decade. Microsoft had gone public several months after Jobs’ 1985 departure, but during the time that both companies had been publicly traded, the Mac-maker’s shares had not even doubled, while Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) had produced a staggering 18,000% return. The market, it seemed, had left Apple for dead, with or without Jobs. But the substance of the Macworld speech — which included the revelations of a new partnership between Apple and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) — succeeded in two ways: It calmed investors, who bid shares up 33% after Jobs was done, and it bestowed on Jobs the prestige and vision the board wanted to see from its next leader. A month and a half after delivering the speech, Jobs became interim CEO. His tenure is now widely regarded as the greatest second act in American business history.

The article The Fall and Triumphant Re-Ascent of Steve Jobs originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Alex Planes.

Fool contributor Alex Planes has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and PepsiCo. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple, Microsoft, and PepsiCo.

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